Earl Jones gets 11 years for $50M Ponzi scheme

A frail-looking Earl Jones, who is alleged to have swindled investors out of millions of dollars, arrives at the Montreal courthouse on Jan. 15, 2010.Pierre Obendrauf
/ The Gazette

Courthouse guards help Bunny Storey, one of Earl Jones's victims, to her feet at the Palais de Justice on Feb. 15, 2010, where Earl Jones was sentenced to 11 years for swindling investors out of $50 million. Storey sat on the floor after nearly fainting while waiting to enter the courtroom.Dave Sidaway
/ The Gazette

Bevan Jones, brother of disgraced financial adviser Earl Jones, speaks with the media after Earl Jones received an 11-year sentence at the Palais de Justice in Montreal on Feb. 15, 2010, for orchestrating a massive Ponzi scheme that defrauded investors of $50 million.Dave Sidaway
/ The Gazette

Courthouse guards help Bunny Storey, one of Earl Jones's victims, to her feet at the Palais de Justice in Montreal on Feb. 15, 2010, where Earl Jones was sentenced to 11 years for swindling investors out of $50 million. Storey sat on the floor after nearly fainting while waiting to enter the courtroom.Dave Sidaway
/ The Gazette

Bevan Jones, brother of disgraced financial adviser Earl Jones, speaks with the media after Earl Jones received an 11-year sentence at the Palais de Justice in Montreal on Feb. 15, 2010, for orchestrating a massive Ponzi scheme that defrauded investors of $50 million.Dave Sidaway
/ The Gazette

Bunny Storey, one of Earl Jones's victims, sits on the floor at the Palais de Justice in Montreal on Feb. 15, 2010, where Earl Jones was sentenced to 11 years for swindling investors out of $50 million. Storey sat on the floor after nearly fainting while waiting to enter the courtroom.Dave Sidaway
/ The Gazette

Disgraced financier Earl Jones clutches the arm of a security guard as he is escorted from the Palais de Justice in Montreal on July 28, 2009. Jones is accused of bilking Montreal-area investors of up to $75 million.Dave Sidaway
/ The Gazette

After Mary Coughlan realized in July that all the money she entrusted to Earl Jones had vanished, she started waking up at 4 a.m. feeling sick with dread...

MONTREAL – Bertram Earl Jones was sentenced to 11 years in prison yesterday and the one thing his brother wanted on this day was denied.

"I couldn't get a look at his face; I just wanted to see him," Bevan Jones said.

"If I was allowed, I would have run up to him to look in his eyes," he said of the sibling who robbed him of his life savings.

Earl Jones made no eye contact at all when he entered Room 3.06 at the Palais de Justice, hunched over and looking the worse for wear.

His hair was long and looked greasy. He wore baggy jeans, boat shoes and a greyish T-shirt under his plaid shirt. His florid complexion hinted at the high blood pressure from which he is apparently suffering.

With his wrists cuffed, he sat bent over almost double in the prisoner's dock and kept his hands up on either side of his face, occasionally wiping at his eyes.

Judge Hélène Morin handed down her sentence a month after both the Crown and the defence recommended 11 years for Jones. With good behaviour he could be out by autumn of 2011.

On Jan. 15, the disgraced money man pleaded guilty to defrauding 158 clients of $50 million in a Ponzi scheme he operated for more than two decades.

The courtroom that Jones appeared in was full to bursting, with all 56 seats taken. Cheri Beluse, the daughter of a victim, gave up her seat when she realized that Bevan Jones would not get a chance to see his baby brother on the day of judgment.

Another courtroom with a video hookup was filled to capacity with more victims, many of whom came to the courthouse in a school bus from Pointe Claire and the Cavendish Mall. That still left two dozen victims without even an image of the disgraced money man.

Victim Ginny Nelles had prepared a statement that she had been told by the Crown prosecutor she could read prior to Morin's sentencing, but it was not permitted.

When the judge was reading her lengthy sentencing statement, Bevan Jones stared straight ahead. Other victims in the room strained for a view of the man who stole their retirement plans and legacies.

Kevin Curran, a member of the victims' organizing committee that has rallied the troops for seven months, held his face in his hands and looked at the floor.

In her sentencing, Morin took many of the comments from 117 victims' impact statements into consideration when she addressed Jones.

"All victims now suffer from insomnia," the judge read. "Almost all have seen their health suddenly deteriorate with symptoms never experienced before. Two have seen recurrence in the cancer they are suffering from. Some who took pride in never having taken medication are now living on antidepressants. Some even experienced suicidal thoughts."

When the judge remarked on a statement from Jones's niece that her uncle "is a disgrace to the Jones good name" and she was relieved her grandmother is not alive to see this, he buried his face in his hands.

"He deserves more than what he's getting," Bevan Jones said after his brother left the room. "I definitely don't think he got enough of a sentence in this Mickey Mouse system.

"He ruins 100 lives and he'll be out on the street."

"I feel stunned," victim Wendy Nelles said. "I'm still numb, and the justice system is incomprehensible. That man is a thief."